Silly Boy Thing
by Threepwillow
Summary: There are lots of things Botan hates about the world of the living, but video games are not one of them. And the silly boys she babysits are keeping something from her, she just knows it. :::Oneshot, YusukexKuwabara, sort of:::


Ever since she'd met Urameshi Yusuke, Botan had begun to feel less like a grim reaper and more like a babysitter. Given who her boss was, she found this a little ironic, but for the most part it was not a job she had much to complain about. Botan had always prided herself on being very respectful. She did what was asked of her with little to no protest; she'd learned very quickly not to question Koenma's logic no matter how unsound it appeared to be at first; and really, though he was a bit ridiculous and could worry you to death if you weren't careful, there were worse kids to babysit than Yusuke (and his friends). At least when he misbehaved, he was usually pretty straightforward about it.

_Usually_ straightforward. Which was why this was so..._unusual_.

There weren't a whole lot of things Botan liked about the world of the living. For one, she definitely couldn't get down with the common modes of transportation. Every city bus or subway ride she ever had to take had her fingers itching for her oar, regardless of how many times Koenma cautioned her against _drawing unnecessary attention by flying around like witches on brooms were an everyday occurrence._ Although once or twice he may not have used the word "witches." She also loathed weather in all its forms - the heat and humidity that frizzed her hair to an unmanageable mass of cyan, or the rain that soaked her to the bone and never seemed to leave her smelling quite the same. She hated the buzzing of insects; she flinched every time a car honked its horn in passing.

But she'd grown to be rather fond of video games.

She'd played once or twice with Yusuke and Kuwabara down at the arcade they frequented, in an effort to keep up her guise as a normal teenage girl even in the face of everything that had spoiled it. They'd teased her mercilessly at first - she wasn't any good yet, for one, and they insisted that games like this "were really for guys instead of girls, anyway." So from then on she'd only played in secret - at Yusuke's house on his older system, when he was out with Kuwabara or Keiko, or at Kuwabara's house on his more advanced platform when he was out with Yusuke. Shizuru and Atsuko were more than willing to let her bum around. It was the boys that eventually kicked her out when they figured out what she was doing. It seemed pretty ridiculous, if you asked Botan. All it was was a little man running around and jumping onto things to make them disappear. (Then again, if that were the case, it shouldn't be so entertaining, should it!)

And then, a few weeks ago, Yusuke and Kuwabara had become awfully elusive about..._something_. They'd rush Botan out the door - telling her completely bogus things about _shouldn't she be heading back to Spirit World_ and _thanks but we've got a lot of homework to do_ (as if they ever did any!) - and then even before the door had closed all the way behind her, they'd be darting down the stairs to Kuwabara's basement.

Which just so happened to be where he kept their older, smaller TV and his Super Famicom.

What it came down to was this, then: Kuwabara and Yusuke had a new video game that they weren't telling her about.

"You don't know for certain it's that, Botan," Keiko said to her one afternoon over milkshakes from the ice cream cart in the downtown shopping center. Yusuke and Kuwabara had cringed at the mere mention of shopping, but since they seemed so eager to boot Botan out any more, she'd offered to go with Keiko just to have something to do.

"All I know is they're being awfully sneaky about something," she said with a slurp of vanilla. "And Kuwabara did just collect on a bet with one of his friends, so I bet he had the money to go and buy it...rrgh!"

Keiko poked at the dregs of her own banana shake with her straw. "I guess I just don't see why you're so interested anyway," she admitted. "I mean, it's just a silly boy thing, right?"

"That's the other thing I don't get - this whole _boy thing_ business!" She set her cup down harder than was necessary. "Who arbitrarily decided that girls weren't supposed to like games like this, hmm? It seems so ridiculous!"

Keiko sighed. "Sorry, Botan, but if you ask me, the ridiculous part is how worked up you're getting."

Botan deflated a little and sighed, too. "I guess you're right - it's irrational of me. I'm just...it's just not very fair to exclude me on something like this, is it? I'm their friend, aren't I?" _I'm not just their babysitter?_

"Well, you're my friend too, and I say the best way for us to feel better is to hit a couple more stores!" said Keiko, standing up from their little table and heading off purposefully. Tossing her empty milkshake cup into a nearby trashcan, Botan followed, vowing to keep the video game scenario at the back of her mind.

But a week later, they were all sitting together in Kuwabara's kitchen, talking about the job Yusuke had just finished and making sure there weren't any loose ends left untied, when Yusuke - after retelling a particularly flashy fight between the two of them and a monster with supposedly "impervious" metalloid skin - gave Kuwabara a curious look and steered the conversation sharply elsewhere.

"Oh hey, Kuwabara, didn't you say before that you needed help with something in the basement?"

Kuwabara's ears turned a little pink, and his answer came out slightly nervously. "Uh, you wanna get that done right now, Urameshi?"

"Yeah, I think we should, while I'm still feelin' generous." He turned to Botan. "No offense, but we're done here, aren't we? This thing we gotta do'll probably take a while." Kuwabara's reaction to those last three words was uninterpretable but very suspicious.

"Er, no, that's fine, Yusuke," she told him carefully. "I might be back tomorrow if anything else about the case comes up, is that all right?"

"Sure, sure, that's fine," Yusuke said, already getting hasty. "We'll see you then."

"Yeah, catch you later, Botan," Kuwabara agreed, sounding pretty anxious himself.

Botan, seeing that she was obviously no longer wanted here, rose and pushed her chair back in. "Okay, well, be seeing you!" She headed for the front door, and as soon as she'd left the kitchen she heard their chairs scraping the floor as they darted for the basement.

But Botan had seen her chance. She opened the front door, then closed it again, making it sound like she was leaving. Nothing from the basement indicated that Yusuke or Kuwabara had noticed. _Probably too engrossed in that game!_ she thought angrily. So, to make absolutely sure that her footsteps wouldn't be heard sneaking after them, Botan pulled her oar from the air and gently hoisted herself onto it, gliding carefully toward the stairs. The door was shut, but not locked, and she eased the latch open as soundlessly as possible. She was going to catch them in the act if it was the last thing she did!

But then, upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Botan discovered that she had caught them in a very, _very_ different act than the one she had been expecting.

There they both were, on the couch, but they were definitely _not_ making use of Kuwabara's Super Famicom. Kuwabara sat upright on the sofa, and there was Yusuke _straddling him_, skinny knees digging into the cushions on either side of Kuwabara's hips. Yusuke had a thumb each on Kuwabara's sharp cheekbones and appeared to be...yes, he _was_... They were most definitely and _most_ thoroughly _kissing each other_.

Or they were, until Botan fell off her oar and onto the landing of the stairs in shock and startled them both into awareness. The three of them sat frozen, staring at each other in dead silence for what seemed like a dangerously long time. Then, as if only just then finally realizing her mistake, Botan burst out laughing. She climbed back up the stairs in hysterics, the images of the completely mortified Yusuke and Kuwabara caught in the middle of their _silly boy thing_ forever burned into her mind.

It was in that instant that Botan made her decision: if they were old enough to be sneaking around doing things like _that_, they were certainly old enough to get by without a babysitter.


End file.
